It is becoming increasingly important in many technical fields, in particular with automation systems, that data, e.g. system data, program data, system functions or other protected information, present in a protected area can only be accessed by previously identified, authenticated and authorized users.
Methods for authenticating users are used widely today. For example a user is authenticated by a password input by said user in an input field of a login area. If the user inputs a valid password, said user is authenticated and obtains access to the information present in the protected area. To transfer the password from the login area to the protected area the password is encrypted using corresponding algorithms, e.g. the encryption algorithm known as MD5, and transferred to the protected area as a so-called access identifier. However it is no longer possible or only possible with great difficulty to identify the user and log their access where necessary in the protected area with this password that has now been encrypted and transferred in the access identifier. It is therefore generally no longer possible in the protected area to track who exactly has accessed the information and data present in the protected area.